POETRY: TANIS MACDONALD

CLIMATE CASCADE

When a crow chases
an eagle, she’s no crisis
but confidence. Game.
 
Only thirty years
left for chinook salmon. How
many for us? Same
 
river each time you
step in and soak. Hear that long
high note on a passing
 
car stereo. Prime
a pump with your own water.
Skunk cabbage is strong
 
enough to wake bears.
The labyrinth pulls grief's
long impacted tooth.
 
Inland rainforest. 
These gigantic trees have birds
I know. And won’t ever.
 

Tanis MacDonald is the author of six books of poetry and essays, and a co-editor of GUSH: menstrual manifestos for our times. She lives on the Haldimand Tract, on traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Recent work has appeared in Understorey, Minola Review, and Prairie Fire. 


Statement:
It takes guts to be here, right here, in the violence of the 21st century, dealing with the legacy of the violence of the 20th century. It takes guts to feel toxicity splash up against you and to say, I will name it as I will walk into the teeming world that teems a little less every day. It's not easy but it is right in front of us if we look.